The year 2005 in Ukraine was dominated by the tribulations of the new government headed by Pres. Viktor Yushchenko, who was inaugurated on January 23. His cabinet comprised 15 members of his Our Ukraine Party, 3 Socialist Party members, and a member each from the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc and the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Tymoshenko, a key figure in the Orange Revolution, was appointed prime minister on February 4, with the unanimous endorsement of the parliament.

Yushchenko came to office with promises that Ukraine would take immediate steps to join Euro-Atlantic structures, particularly the EU and NATO. As a result, he attended a NATO commission meeting in Brussels in March and in April had a four-day state visit to the United States, where he delivered an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. He also tried to mend the ruptured relationship with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, visiting Moscow in January and for the May celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

The new government soon ran into serious problems over several key issues, including personality conflicts and mutual accusations of continuing corruption among cabinet ministers; a fuel crisis, which materialized in May and was accompanied by a 15% rise in oil prices, leading the president to accuse his cabinet of incompetence; and an apparent failure to deal with the irregular practices of the regime of former president Leonid Kuchma, notably the reprivatization of companies undersold to favoured oligarchs, including the giant Kryvyy Rih steelworks, and the unsolved 2000 murder of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze.

On March 1 Yushchenko confirmed that the journalist had been murdered by Ukrainian police officers, and two suspects were arrested. Tapes released by Kuchma’s former bodyguard, however, clearly implicated the involvement of government officials. On March 4, shortly before he was scheduled for interrogation, former internal affairs minister Yury Kravchenko was discovered dead in his home. Thereafter, the investigation appeared stalled.

In the eyes of some critics, the Yushchenko administration was viewed as insufficiently different from its predecessor. At a July press conference, the president angrily dealt with a reporter’s questions about the lavish lifestyle of his son by accusing the speaker, Serhy Leshchenko, of acting “like a hired killer.” In a similar fashion the president and several ministers defended the credentials of Justice Minister Roman Zvarych, whom the Internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda accused of padding his résumé with an unearned doctorate and law degree.

The Ukrainian economy slowed down sharply compared with recent years. GDP rose by 4.7% in the first five months of the year, and the anticipated annual rate was likely to be lower than the official prognosis of 8.2%. The slowdown was accompanied by rising inflation and sluggish rates of privatization as a result of the crisis over the Kryvyy Rih steelworks—an issue that remained unresolved until that company’s sale in October to the Rotterdam, Neth.-based Mittal Steel Co. for $4.8 billion.

Nevertheless, there was general surprise when Yushchenko dismissed his entire cabinet on September 8, including Prime Minister Tymoshenko and Petro Poroshenko, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. Chief of Staff Oleksandr Zinchenko also resigned. Over the next two weeks, Yushchenko reached an agreement with Viktor Yanukovich, his former adversary for the presidential post, in order to secure the approval of a new prime minister, Yury Yekhanurov, a Siberian-born resident of Dnipropetrovsk. At the same time, the president granted an amnesty to election officials accused of having manipulated the December 2004 vote.

The new cabinet had eight new faces, as well as a new portfolio—the Ministry for Construction and Architecture. Key appointees were Anatoly Kinakh in the National Security and Defense Council, Arseny Yatsenyuk as minister of the economy, and Serhy Holovaty (appointed in October) as minister of justice. The restructured government faced a period of preparation for the 2006 parliamentary elections, when Yushchenko would likely face opposition from Tymoshenko, his former ally. Though constitutional reforms that were to take effect in January 2006 would provide the new prime minister with enhanced powers vis-à-vis the president, Our Ukraine currently had the support of only about 20% of MPs; Regions of Ukraine (Yanukovich) and the Tymoshenko Bloc had similar standings.

Further political conflict in Ukraine appeared inevitable, and with an economic slowdown and little progress made on EU membership, the road ahead for the Orange government appeared rocky.

Learn More in these related articles:

...with qualifying matches for the 2006 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup finals to be held in Germany. The first European country to qualify was Ukraine, coached by Oleg Blokhin (who held the Soviet Union record of 112 international appearances as a player). The standout on Ukraine’s team was AC Milan striker Andriy Shevchenko, the 2004...

...began in 2003, had by the end of the year infected poultry in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Vietnam. Hundreds of millions of birds had been killed by the disease or slaughtered in efforts to limit its spread.

Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most important producers of natural gas, started the year in a dispute over prices and cut off gas supplies to Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian officials quickly agreed to a price increase, but Russia’s powerful Gazprom did not settle until April. The Ukrainian side subsequently promised to pay Turkmenistan in full for previous gas deliveries; by November Ukrainian...